Patna, Nov. 9: The BJP is drawing up plans to launch a Narendra Modi blitzkrieg in Bihar by getting the party’s star campaigner to address a series of rallies across the state in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections.

The party has called a meeting of its 170 cadres — specifically drafted for Modi’s public meetings in Bihar — on Monday to decide on the other venues and dates for the Gujarat chief minister’s future visits to the state.

“Three of the six persons who died in the blasts of October 27 (when Modi addressed the Hunkar Rally at Gandhi Maidan) belonged to the Scheduled Castes and Extremely Backward Classes and 70 per cent of the 107 injured people hailed from the SCs and EBCs,” Bihar BJP chief Mangal Pandey told The Telegraph. “The figures show that Narendra Modi has emerged as a big attraction for the weaker sections in Bihar.”

Though it is the BJP’s central high command that finally approves dates and venues, sources said the state unit was working to ensure that the “enthusiasm” generated in the wake of Modi’s recent visits to the state did not wane.

“Elections are still about six months away. As of now, there appears to be a strong undercurrent in Modi’s favour. But we will have to maintain the tempo to turn the undercurrent into a wave-like situation in the party’s favour,” said a senior BJP leader. “For that Modi will have to come to Bihar again and again.”

The sources said the BJP might plan at least one big rally in each of the four key regions — Seemanchal (regions bordering Bengal and Nepal) dotted with a sizeable Muslim population, northeastern Bihar, central Bihar and southwestern Bihar — over the next few weeks.

These big rallies, said the sources, would be apart from Modi’s campaign meetings in the state.

BJP sources said party strategists are more focused on drawing the EBC and Mahadalit votes — which now go to Nitish Kumar’s kitty — sensing that the party was set to garner the support of a bulk of the upper castes and business communities.

Nitish’s former deputy-turned-staunch critic, Sushil Kumar Modi argued: “The JD(U) leaders are trying to create a false notion that EBC and Mahadalits were part of Nitish’s pocket borough. It is a fact that the NDA government had done a lot to uplift the condition of the EBCs and Mahadalits. The BJP, as a partner in government, had strongly backed all these welfare measures.”